Missions Types and Locations A new formed mercenary band should restrict itself to taking easy missions. These are generaly under 50 gold in worth although price does not completely indicate difficulty. The following is a more specific list of the missions a new band should feel comfortable with.
Rescue a Merchant
The idea of this mission is to protect another character. This character will be added to your party. Although this character is weak and feeble your success in the mission is completly reliant on his survival. You should try to keep the merchant out of combat as much as possible, but there are times you will have to weigh the life of the merchant against the lives of your own band...
Steal an Item
Success of this mission is solely dependant on finding the item and retreiving it by burning down the building it is on. It is not nessasary, or even advised, for a party to kill all of the monsters defending the item unless your band can easily do so. You may wish to employ scouts that can quickly recon the map and find the item. Once the item has been retrieved, you can retreat from the mission for success.
Guard an Item
This is the inverse mission to the previous one. Here you must kill all the opposing monsters trying to steal the item. This mission sends the fewest monsters at you and may be the easiest mission for a weak party. Be carful not to steal the items yourself for you may never find another job after the loss in fame this incurrs. This is the easiest mission for recuits to accomplish.
Scout an Area
This mission is built for scouts and speed. The purpose is to uncover the fog of war from all areas of the map. Killing or even attacking any monsters in not necessary, in fact we recommend you not attack at all so your band can better defend themselves. Because of the speed issues and the large number of enemy troops to avoid, this mission works best with scouts.
Other Missions
Every time you encounter a new mission type it may be wise to check out the mission info scroll. Remember that if you have a low level party any other missions may be suicide.
Dangerous Areas
Don't go into the Dragon Mountains or the Black Lands untill you feel that the other areas are getting easier. However, it is always temping to adventure in these forbidden areas for the extra fame alone. Starting bands may also find themselves stearing clear of Tsen Tsee as well, as it is also dangerous.
Weapons, Armor and Special Items The first thing you should do before entering a mission is to spend your starting gold purchasing better weapons and armor for your initial party. Also if you are fortunate enough to find special items in a mission, remember that they must be used before taking another mission or they will be lost.
Hidden Attributes
All weapons and armor have both offensive and deffensive attributes, though they are not both displayed. You may view the complete statistics of any item by finding an identify scroll.
Magical Properties
Some items have or can be given magical properties. These not only include magical spells but various enhancements. There are three enhancements. Enchanted equipment adds 25 points to the attack value. Charmed equipment adds 25 points to the defence value. Blessed equipment adds 15 points to both the attack and the defence values.
Warded Items
Occasionaly you will find scrolls that will ward a weapon or armor. This helps protect the character using it from enemy spells. Be careful when you use a ward scroll, for it will remove any other magical properties the equipment may have.
Cursed Items
Cursed items are all special items you pick up that have negative effects. Fortunatly all such items are easily identified as such so for most adventurers this is not a problem. Some masichistic people actually preffer the effects of some cursed items, but these can always be removed later with remove curse items.
Final Words This is just a basic strategy guid and does not attempt to tell you everything about the game. Here are a few more basic tips to keep you on track. Remember that you can always go to the lounge to chat with others who may know a few tricks.
Torching Buildings
Burning down buildings and trees can be both satisfying and fun. Often items can be hidden within buildings so burning buildings can also be profitable. Employers realize that a certain amout of collateral damage comes with hiring a band of mercenaries, so you will NOT be charged for destruction of property or reckless endangerment. (In fact it may even increase your fame.)
Insideous Bobs
Even a un-famed band may face a creature known as a bob. The best advise we can give to an early party encountering one of these beasts is "run." Or you could try running. Bobs not only cast a deadly magical spell, but they are flyers and thus can cross any terrain without penalty. As you advance look for warded items that will help protect you from spells. Note that because bobs only cast spells they are harder to hit. (See the dexterity notes below.)
Saving
Saving your game can only be done from the resource management screen. This is done by simply pressing the F5 key. We suggest that you save your game often to prevent depressing party losses.
Dexterity
The crutial element for your success when either attacking or defending is the characters dexterity. It increases their chance of hitting as well as their chance of dodging. Unfortunatly dexterity is temporarily halved when the character attacks with anything other than a spell, and remains halved till the beginning of the next turn. This means it is best for surounded party members not to attack at all, keeping their defence high till other band members can rescue him. Also if none of your characters attack one round, the monsters that attacked will have half dexterity on your next turn and can more easily be slain.
Retreating
Finally, do not be afraid to retreat. The resurection cost of dead members will often be more than the upkeep for a failed mission (you can see your upkeep by pressing F4 in the battle screen) and so retreating is the cheapest option. Often retreating will save the lives of your otherwise doomed party members if you take a mission which proves to be too tough. Additionaly, as noted in the Mission Info scrolls, retreating will often still leave you victorious if you have already completed the important mission objectives.